The Dangers of Avoidance
by Mintrosy
Summary: J. Daniel Atlas is shot during his performance in NYSM2. Guilt and determination to finish exposing Marby keeps him from telling his friends and getting medical attention. Will the other Horsemen figure out that Danny isn't actually okay? Or will the showman keep quiet until it's too late? (No obvious ships but does have hints of Danny/Dylan, Danny/Merritt, and even Danny/Jack).


"Was that an act of God? No, no, no. That was an act of me. And those strobe lights, and rain machines. And I hope you guys were paying attention, because you're gonna need to know all of that for the ﬁnal."

Danny smirked at the crowd's cheers as he readied himself for his water disappearing trick. He pulled his jacket's hood over his head and spread his arms out wide. Just as Danny's eyes closed, he heard the sound of a gun ﬁring before suddenly a blinding pain erupted in his right shoulder. A pained gasp was torn from his lips and he staggered back a couple of steps. The shocked crowd started to panic and scatter, allowing the disoriented Horseman the opportunity to escape the line of sight of the unknown shooter.

The injured magician ran through the shrouded alleys of London, breath coming in short bursts and black dots spotting his vision. His shoulder felt like it was on ﬁre as he ran, and a particularly sharp turn forced Daniel to stop and catch his breath. He slumped against a nearby wall and clutched the wound in a desperate to stop the bleeding. Danny leaned his head against the cool stone wall and groaned quietly at the pain. _'Shit, I have to get to the others before_ _I pass out'_ , he thought angrily. Suddenly, his earpiece crackled to life and he registered Dylan's rushed voice addressing the Horsemen.

"Atlas, Lula, where the hell are you guys?" Dylan said.

"I'll be there in a minute, believe it or not, it's a little hard to run in heels," replied the obviously running woman.

Daniel quickly looked at his surroundings and realized he was just around the corner from the rendezvous point. _'Thank God'_.

He pushed himself into a sprint, the determination to ﬁnish the mission and adrenaline coursing through his system keeping him moving. Daniel raced around a corner and was greeted by the sight of his fellow magicians mounting their motorcycles and talking loudly.

"I'm here." Daniel spoke quickly in order to hide his current state. He didn't going to be responsible for endangering the plan, especially since he already screwed up everything else with Dylan and the chip.

Lula appeared a second later, "What the hell happened!" she shouted frantically.

"My goddamn brother happened." Merritt snapped. As the rest of the team frantically spoke, Danny slowly put on his helmet, wincing as he lifted his arms. Unfortunately for the showman, Dylan immediately noticed.

"Danny? What's the matter?" He questioned, the concern in his voice drew the attention of the rest of the bickering Horsemen.

Daniel sighed, he knew he'd have no chance of getting away with lying while Merritt's attention was on him. He mustered up his strength and said dismissively, "It's ﬁne, Marby must've had someone in the crowd, he got me at the end of my performance."

"Wait, were you shot?!" Lula shrieked, eyes wide. Danny avoided Merritt and Dylan's gaze and started the bike's engine.

"Lula, please, it was just a graze. I'm ﬁne." scoﬀed Daniel.

Jack eyed Daniel skeptically, but ﬁnally nodded. "Ok. Let's go!" he shouted as he sped oﬀ towards the approaching vehicles.

The following struggle against Marby's armed men was extremely chaotic, and Danny nearly screamed out when he and Dylan had to grab Lula oﬀ her bike in order to help Jack. His right shoulder was in excruciating pain as he and the others were manhandled into the black truck, and he felt a wave of nausea that he was thankfully able to control as Tressler gave his little bad guy spiel.

The Horsemen were rushed into the plane and pushed into seats, and Daniel's pain muddled brain almost missed it when Walter started talking to him.

"Oh Daniel! I see you got my little present!" Marby laughed and squeezed Daniel's shoulder harshly.

Danny gritted his teeth and tried to show no reaction to Marby's rough shaking. He wouldn't give this sociopath the satisfaction. "Yeah, thanks for that," he snarled.

After the attention was oﬀ him, Daniel clenched his eyes and dipped his head down, trying to keep himself from passing out. He only snapped back to attention when Dylan and the other started yelling, and he quickly produced the chip for Marby. They all played their part as they were thrown from the plane and onto the crash pad. Danny was the last one to be pushed out of the plane, and the impact on his shoulder forced Daniel to stay on his back for a few extra seconds. Blackness was creeping over the edges of his vision, and he faintly heard Lula laughing at Marby and Tressler drinking the fake alcohol. Jack helped a shaky Daniel up oﬀ the ground, and they joined the others to gloat. Daniel remembered to introduce Dylan Shrike before the rest of the performance blurred and warped around Daniel's consciousness.

...

The Horsemen, minus Dylan, quickly made their escape from the barge. Daniel desperately tried to keep up to his oblivious teammates, knowing that he had to get to safety before he could deal with his injury. They ﬁnally meet up with Li, and Daniel allowed himself a sigh as he, Merritt, and Jack shuﬄed into the backseat of the car. Lula and Li talked animately from the front, with Jack leaning closer to the passenger seat to join in.

Danny rested his head against the window, the blood loss and exhaustion overwhelming him as the adrenaline from the night faded.

"Merritt." Danny called weakly, unheard. He felt lightheaded and his breathing was becoming increasingly forced. "Merritt." he said a little louder.

The hypnotist turned his head toward the younger man, "Yeah, Buﬀy?" Merritt smirked.

Danny ignored the teasing and asked quietly, "We're clear, right? It's over?"

Merritt frowned, "Yeah, we're on our way to meet Dylan at the safe zone now. Hey, are you ok? You look...weird."

"Good. I'm good." Danny mumbled, eyes ﬂuttering. Merritt placed a hand on Danny's shoulder, and was surprised when Danny furrowed his eyebrows and tried to move away. Merritt removed his hand and gasped when he saw it was covered with blood.

"Shit!"

The other two Horsemen and Li immediately stopped their conversation and turned to see an uncharacteristically quiet Daniel and a panicked Merritt. The older man carefully removed Danny's overcoat to ﬁnd his entire right side drenched in blood. There was a shocked pause before a frenzy of movement and shouting erupted from within the car.

"Jack, keep pressure on his shoulder! Lula, try to get in touch with Dylan. We need to get Danny help now." Merritt ordered hastily.

"I'll call in a favor, I have a doctor friend not too far from here." Li added and sped up the car.

Danny groaned as Merritt lowered him so that his head was resting in Merritt's lap, and Jack gave a rushed apology before pressing against Danny's injured shoulder to stop the bleeding. Danny himself was confused as to what was happening, he heard the loud distorted voices of his friends and was beginning to feel a numbness sweep over him. He tried focusing on the face and voice above him, but his eyes felt too heavy and his breathing was slowing down considerably.

"Danny! Hey, Danny! Stay awake ok? You're going to be ﬁne, but you need to stay with us." Jack said while Merritt put a hand on Danny's face in an eﬀort to keep him awake. They became increasingly worried when Daniel did nothing to stop him from touching, and his eyes remained unfocused.

"S-sorry. I-I'm sorry" Danny stuttered, trying to keep his eyes open. The last thing he heard before darkness overtook him was the sound of traﬃc whizzing past and his friends frantically shouting his name.

...

Dylan Shrike rushed to get to the location of his Horsemen, having received a call from Lula only minutes before. When he got to the well-hidden clinic, he was unsure of what he'd ﬁnd.

Jack was at the nearby sink, washing blood of his shaking hands, cursing to himself quietly. The amount of blood that was being scrubbed oﬀ shocked Dylan, and he torn his eyes away from the pinkish water. Lula was sitting down ﬂipping through some magazine that she wasn't even reading, eyes distant. She mumbled a greeting before returning to the pages. He walked towards Merritt, who was leaning against the wall and talking to Li in serious tones.

"How is he?" Dylan was afraid to know the answer.

Merritt sighed and ran a hand over his face, "The damn doctor hasn't come out yet. We don't  
know."

A pit was starting to form in Dylan's stomach as Li continued telling him the details of the situation.

"They are removing the bullet from his shoulder now, but he lost a lot of blood since the time he got shot."

They waited in tense silence for what seemed like forever until the doctor ﬁnally came out of the room that contained their injured friend. The doctor looked at the group and informed them that Daniel would be just ﬁne, and that the removal of the bullet was without any complications. They breathed a collective sigh of relief and entered the room that held Daniel.

Danny was propped up on the bed, looking a little worse for wear, but _awake_ and _alive_.

Jack sat on Danny's right, eyes sweeping over the bandages that adorned the showman's shoulder and chest. Lula took a seat on the other side while Dylan and Merritt stood by the bottom of the bed.

Merritt was the one that broke the silence, "So, I'm gonna address the elephant in the room and just outright ask it,"

"You really don't have to" Danny interjected.

"Well too bad Sunshine, why didn't you tell us?" Merritt glared.

"Look, I thought I could handle it. I didn't want to mess up the plan." Danny pouted.

"What the hell, man. That doesn't matter, you should've told us. Y-you could've died." Jack said, blinking furiously and clenching the sheets on the bed.

"Seriously, you're lucky you're still even alive with all that blood loss." Lula informed, her red eyes betraying the fact that she had also been crying. Danny's indignant attitude softened a bit at the obvious stress that he caused the two youngest members.

"I'm sorry, ok? I just...I couldn't let you guys down or put you in danger again just because of my ego. I didn't want to be a burden." Danny sighed.

"The mission would never have been worth more than your life, you got that?" the intensity that Jack spoke with was enough for Danny to nod guiltily without disagreeing.

"Glad you're ok kid, don't ever scare us like that again." Merritt said from across the room.

"Worried that you'll get a heart attack, old man?" Danny smirked.

"Haha very funny kid, I'll let that pass this one time. Only because I'm a kind soul." With that Merritt left the room, followed closely by Lula and Jack, after giving Daniel one last relieved look.

...

Dylan knew that he should say something, it was only him and Daniel in the room, and the latter was staring at him expectantly. Dylan couldn't stop his mind from racing about what he should've seen or done diﬀerent, but then he ﬁnally knew what he had to say to the young man before him.

"I'm sorry."

Whatever Daniel had been expecting him to say, it certainly wasn't that. Dylan watched a confused expression pass over Danny's face before it shifted to anger. Daniel's widen eyes and furrowed brow indicated that much. Only when Danny opened his mouth slightly as if he wanted to argue, did Dylan intervene.

"This is my fault, I should have known something was wrong when I ﬁrst saw you. I want to apologize for putting you in this situation." Dylan explained.

Danny recovered from his surprise and replied angrily, "No! You shouldn't be the one that's sorry! It was my fault that you got locked in that stupid safe, it was my fault that you almost died! This," Danny gestured wildly to himself, "is nothing compared to what I did to you."

Dylan laughed softly, "Hey, relax. I don't blame you. Ok? If it makes you feel better, we'll call it even."

"I guess." Danny answered begrudgingly. He then slumped down on the bed and closed his eyes. "This was one hell of a night."

"Yeah, it was. Get some rest Danny. We'll talk to you tomorrow." Dylan answered before walking towards the door and ﬂicking oﬀ the lights.

After that incident, the Horsemen never failed to pay attention to the showman, because despite his normally prickly personality, J. Daniel Atlas was a necessary and wanted part of their makeshift family.


End file.
